1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telecommunications and, more particularly, to methods and systems for identifying a mobile station to a content server.
2. Description of Related Art
Wireless telecommunications technologies are continuing to develop in order to provide enhanced multimedia (e.g., data) service to wireless devices. The effort is currently referred to as third-generation wireless or “3G.” For example, the IS-2000 specification describes a CDMA air interface for 3G, and the IS-835 specification and various specifications of the Third Generation Partnership Project 2 (“3GPP2”) describe the operation of third-generation wireless networks.
As presently envisioned, a 3G network includes a packet-switched network that wireless customers can access to connect to the Internet, browse the World Wide Web, send and receive e-mails, etc. One difficulty in providing such services to wireless customers is that they often use devices, such as wireless telephones and personal digital assistants (PDAs), that have limited capabilities. For example, such devices may not be able to display the graphics that laptop and desktop computers are able to display because of less pixel resolution, less color resolution, and/or smaller screens. In addition, handheld wireless devices often have differently-structured user interfaces, such as smaller keypads or pen-based input. As a result, while most Web content is currently written in the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), Web browsers on handheld wireless devices often require Web content to be written in specialized markup languages, such as the Wireless Markup Language (WML) or the Handheld Device Markup Language (HDML), or in specialized versions of HTML, such as cHTML or xHTML.
To accommodate such wireless customers, the 3G network may include various applications to provide service tailored to devices with limited capabilities. For example, the 3G network may include a Web gateway that wireless customers access to receive Web content, e.g., by using the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). The Web gateway may receive content from a content server at a URL specified by the customer and then transcode or render the content to facilitate its display on the particular device the wireless customer is using. The Web gateway may also apply a customer's preferences when providing the content to the customer. As a result, it is preferable for the Web gateway to have information regarding the particular customer and wireless device receiving the content in order to transcode or render the content appropriately and in order to apply the customer's preferences.
In many implementations, however, the Web gateway or other application may not be able to obtain reliable information identifying the customer it is serving or the particular device the customer is using. For example, the Web gateway or other application may only know the IP address of the customer it is serving. In many cases, this IP address does not reliably identify the customer because it may be dynamically assigned. Thus, a particular customer may use a particular IP address only for a particular session. When that customer's session ends, e.g., because the customer has logged off, turned off the wireless device, moved out of range, or for some other reason, the same IP address may be assigned to a different customer. This may lead to the undesirable situation of the Web gateway or other application applying the first customer's profile to the second customer simply because the second customer was assigned the same IP address. In addition, the customer's IP address does not typically indicate what device the customer is using for network access. Indeed, even the identity of the customer may not reliably indicate what device the customer is using, because a customer may use different devices with different capabilities to access the network at different times.
This lack of reliable identifying information can be a problem for content servers as well as for the Web gateway. For example, in order to grant a particular customer access to its applications or services, a content server may require the customer to present one or more valid identifiers, such as a network access identifier (NAI), which identifies the customer, and/or mobile directory number (MDN), which identifies the particular device the customer is using. Although some customer devices may be able to include the necessary identifying information in requests, e.g., HTTP GET requests, sent to content servers, this approach can create additional problems. For example, this insertion process can create an undesirable amount of overhead. In addition, requests sent with such identifying information may be less secure. Finally, many customer devices may be unable to operate in this way, i.e., may be unable to include the necessary identifying information in requests.
Accordingly, there is a need to obtain reliable information regarding what IP address a particular customer is using and reliable information that identifies the particular customer and/or the particular device the customer is using for network access.